Having completed a 3D face with skin texture and hair with Maya Hair, I'm trying to put the eyebrows and the beard stubbles (short and shaved) above the eye and at the sides of the face/cheeks.

I am trying to use PaintFX or fur but doesn't seem to render using Mental Ray - only Maya Software. Problem is my face texture and eyes uses misss_fast_skin which uses mental ray. How do I composite the face and I am also working towards doing an animated face with this model.

How are you? The hair is great! I have a black man and a white man in this space scene (so they're wearing one of those Star Trek uniforms) and the objective is to do a short conversational dialogue between them. So minimal hair movements but some! The 2nd objective is to try to make the scene as photorealistic as possible. Both heads have quite a high polygon count (for the photorealism) plus the hair. I dunno whether to use nCloth for the uniform coz its just a head shot. I haven't done the blend shapes yet but I dread that given my low end PC. I'll be doing the blend shapes of both heads separately and then composite them. I've got separate mb meshes for teeth and eye and I just texture them differently for both heads.

One thing about the eyes - do I need to cut (a hole) in the eye slot of the head mesh and then insert the eye mesh or I just place the eye mesh half embedded and half extruded in the eye area of the head mesh ?

Here's a brief on the space scene (short clip) :

SCENE 01
------------
1. Intro fade into a remote, deserted, desolate northernmost space outpost (embedded into the mountains) in heavy snow blizzard / rain thunderstorm on an alien planet - the space base had been attacked by the enemy leaving few survivors

2. Flythrough a dark, desolate maze of caverns within the space outpost (very dark scene) with a couple of live wires and sparks fizzing here and there now and then. Metals clanging. Some destroyed equipments and some smoke in the background

3. Flythrough ends in a large cavern (used as a radio room). Closeup shot of an injured hand (of a radio controller officer) creeping up towards an SOS button of the radio transmittal controls (still works) and finally succeeds in pressing the SOS button which is overheard by a passing space ship

SCENE02
------------
1. A modern futuristic space vehicle (based on an Apache helicopter mb) (back on earh) hovers and lands vertically kicking up sand and dust.

2. Closeup of a woman's shapely thighs wearing high heels getting out of the helicopter and finally mid distance shot of the (sexy) woman getting out escorted by a few army gentlemen and
walks straight to base

SCENE03
-----------
Space battle involving several single seater ships taking place just above a major O-ring space station

Would appreciate your comments on the Maya approach to take for the scenes above.

I'm using Movie Maker to do the wmv (STOIK then converts it to AVI and tmpenc then finally converts it to a small-sized mpg!)

Hi ezanih
I am fine thank you, normaly you delete the polygon for the eyes, how did you make the mesh for your heads zbrush or maya could you post a pic, you are going to need to make low poly models for distance shot and med poly models for mid ground shot. I know you have a low spec machine put I think will be able to do this like I said you have to think clever, Look at lowering you poly cound and using bump maps and normal maps to get the same effect.............have a good day dave

I'm now working on photorealism on the black man's face. PaintFX have got some good selections such as black eyebrow and rasta hair and beard stubbles. I've got good skin texture and colour with fast_skin and Brownian and I'm now going for the eyes which also uses sss. Just noticed I coloured the eye white too white and I was changing all sorts of sliders on the Attribute Editor but the color wasn't changing until I realised it was in the texture file I was supplying through Photoshop . I changed the eye white to be a bit darkish and now it looks fine but the pupils are a bit too bland black. I have specular and reflection...that looks fine but the pupil looks a bit cartoonish black. Obviously I have to work on the eyebrows and the region around the eyes are much darker and then there's the pear shaped cut at the ends of the eyes facing the nose. And I have to cut the 2 holes around the left and right eyes region on the head mesh. Hope to post a shot soon when I think its "viewable" (a bit ashamed to show it in its current sad state at the moment)

By the way I studied in Imperial College near South Kensington London and did my A-Levels in Kent. Really enjoyed my stay in England as a student although I haven't really travelled out of London except Bath and Docklands. I was there for 7 years (1985-1992). How's the weather there at the moment?

The weather is now turning to spring (thank god) been a long and cold winter, you really should not be ashamed of your models we all need to start some where, some times a picture says a thousand words. .....dave

Thanks for your reply. Spring ? Ah...the flowers must be nice (send me a bunch of cherry blossoms). MK...whereabout is that in England ? Wait...ah, of course...Milton Keynes! That's a really nice place to be.

My black man model's black pupils are still just too bland...too flat..they still look cartoonish...despite the realistic picture mapped specular reflection and shininess. I think I'm going to make him wear shades.

Please...please tell me about yourself, Dave. How did you get involve in Maya and 3D and graphics? What are the things you have designed (especially in relation to photorealism)? I think British 3D artists are really very good (Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale, 300BC, League of Gentlemen, Alien3). Give me a Facebook on photoalbum or UTube where I can see some of your works

P.S. >> I saw Dustin Hoffman strolling privately in South Kensington Gardens SW7 when I was staying in London )

Hi ezanih
I have only been learning maya for about 8 months before that Lightwave for a year and a half also Zbrush. This is just a hobby for me to old and to slow to get into it for a living. You can see all the work I have done on this site.
"Another pod racer" finished work
"Head model" WIP
"MP-40" WIP
"Avatar" challange
I dont do Facebook or any thing like that, As for photorealism I am looking into that for faces at the moment as doing the avatar made me understand how little I know (texturing being the most important at the moment for me).............dave

Ah Dave..how incredible God is to hand down our chance meeting in this forum. I really find it astonishing but we're in the same boat! I'm 40 and I'm also doing Maya and 3D graphics as a hobby. I thought you're an employed CG artist. Previously I used Blender 3D. And I'm now only coming back into Photoshop with CS3 (used to do Photoshop 6 way back then with Director 8.0). I'm also looking towards photorealism but not just the face..but everything...but its good to start somewhere. I know ZBrush and Mudbox.

I would like to work together with you to produce some great 3D short B-movies..and share experiences....perhaps by continuing to communicate like this through Simple Maya and also through other forms of communication. My Yahoo Messenger ID is : ezanih@yahoo.com. If you use YM, just send me an invite. I'll post you some of my work soon...just as soon as it moves up one notch on quality :-) . We can also connect our PCs remotely - just download TeamViewer.

By the way, I'm from Malaysia so my next question is : when are you coming to Malaysia for a holiday ? :-))

Oh...I finally found out why my black man's eye pupils are too bland. I merely put specular reflection on his eyes (that small white dot or square) but I did not do a full reflection map to cover his whole eye area which is made of reflective material. Once I put that in, the eyes became much more photorealistic! Now I need to do

(1) his eye brows
(2) darken the area around his eyes including lashes
(3) the shaved stubbles on left and right cheeks
(4) his short (almost bald) curly hair - its not long so I might use PaintFX instead of the full Maya Hair which is only realistic for long hair and windy days
(5) create a new shader and texture for his lips
(6) Rig the face with armature (brows, pupils, eyes, mouth n lips
(7) start animating the head with Blendshapes - don't know if my PC can take this :-)

Any comments on the above steps?

Its easier to do everything in PShop and then map the face with UV Texture Editor in Maya plus a bump map but the result lacks photorealism. I dunno about you but I feel using Maya's built-in native materials and shaders and textures such as fast_skin, sss, brownian gives a more photorealistic result than resources coming from an external app such as PShop. What's your opinion on this?

The area I'm quite worried is Maya Muscles coz it's not available up until Maya 2009 and I'm on 2008. However there are muscle workarounds (such as the wrap deformer) which is a bit cumbersome but I'm looking into it.

Hope we can continue to communicate and work together. I really need your advise in order to put that short movie of mine together which meets quality standards :-) and yes, I'm also doing sound....and I'd like to share my work and thoughts with you. Do you use Yahoo Messenger?

Hi ezanih
I hope you are well, I think if you can get as near photorealistic face all the other texture will fall into place. Why havent a Malaysia guy as a lead role just asking. sorry got to go now 5 kids playing up...............dave

Thanks for your reply. I visited your works on SimplyMaya (after realizing you don't need a link) and learnt a bit about you on the way too

Must be a heavy responsibility with 5 kids and I pray that with your patience, they all grow up to be grateful kids for the good upbringing that you have given them and all the love...I have 2 kids (aged 3 and 4) and expecting my 3rd child this June. How old are yours ? Kids are our God-given assets..if we bring them up well, love them and teach them to be grateful, they will take care of us during our old age.

Anyway, I really like your work and Pod Racer (again)..hi..hi..and your Avatar is coming up nicely. Keep it up! I've made some kind comments..hi hi hi :-) Bye!

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